Freed persons; Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877); Southern States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1950
_Tenth_.--That the laborers should be required to have their meals cooked
in a common kitchen by the plantation cooks, as heretofore. At present
each family cook for themselves. If there be twenty-five houses on a
plantation worked by one hundred hands, there are lighted, three times
every day, winter and summer, for the purpose of cooking, twenty-five (25)
fires, instead of one or two, which are quite as many as are necessary. To
attend these twenty-five fires there must be twenty-five cooks. The
extravagance in wood and the loss of time by this mode must be apparent to
all. Making the negroes pay for the wood they burn, and for fencing lumber
of any kind, would have a tendency to stop this extravagant mode of doing
business. They should also be fined heavily or suffer some kind of
corporal punishment for burning staves, hoop-poles, shingles, plank,
spokes, &c., which they now constantly do.
_Eleventh_.--None but regularly ordained ministers should be allowed to
preach. At present on every plantation there are a number of preachers.
Frequent meetings are held at night, continuing from 7 or 8 p.m. until
1 or 2 o'clock a.m. The day after one of these long meetings many of
the laborers are unfit to labor; neither are the morals of the negroes
improved by these late meetings, nor the health. The night meetings should
break up at 10 p.m., and there should be but one a week on a plantation.
Some of the preachers privately promulgate the most immoral doctrines.
_Twelfth_.--A police guard or patrol should be established under the
control of the superintendent of free labor, whose duty it shall be, under
their officers, to enforce the rules and regulations that the
superintendent of free labor may think best to adopt for the government of
the laborers and their families on plantations and in private families.
_Thirteenth_.--The laborers are at present extremely careless of the
teams, carts, wagons, gear, tools, and material of all kinds put in their
possession, and should therefore be held accountable for the same. Parents
should be held liable for things stolen or destroyed by their children not
over twelve years of age.
_Fourteenth_.--Foremen should be fined whenever they fail to report any of
the laborers under them who disobey orders of any kind. The foreman at the
stable should be required especially to report neglect or ill treatment of
teams by their drivers, and he should be held liable for all tools and
halters, &c., put in the stable.
_Fifteenth_.--The unauthorized purchase of clothing or other property by
laborers, or others domesticated on plantations, should be severely
punished, and so should the sale by laborers or others domesticated on
plantations of plantation products without a written permission be
punished by fine, imprisonment, and obstinate cases by corporal
punishment. The sale or furnishing of intoxicating liquor of any kind to
laborers or others domesticated on plantations should be severely
punished.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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